She cannot put together all the pieces of him in her mind. The gentle, tender man waiting for her signal before even pressing his lips to hers. The patient teacher showing her everything she had never known about the simple steps of the dance of love. The vigorous lover, always ready to please her and never satisfied until she could not think straight, walk straight, or speak a coherent sentence, in any language. The vulnerable slumberer, curled up in the crook of her elbow, head pillowed on her breasts, clutching her as he drowned in nightmares he could never remember, come morning. Or afternoon.

But awake, clad in jacket and cape and tricorne hat, he was the canny Templar, plotting and planning. Even that man, she thought she could have loved, married. He could do much to help her village and clan, with his determination, his skills, his intelligence. She allowed herself, not for the first time, to fantasize about tying feathers into his hair, selecting beads for a warrior's braid by his ear. Patterns for beaded armbands he could easily add to his white-man clothes, a token acknowledging that he was hers and she his. If he came to the village as her husband, she thought he would be accepted. Grudgingly, at first, but after years, after proving his skills in battle, holding back his fellow colonists from the village, after making a few beautiful children with her-

No. Because he was not just those men. He was something that scared her: in the cave, he had lusted first for the power he thought lay beyond the painted wall, and she knew she could not always distract him as she had then, as she continued to do. If he stayed with her, she knew she would always wonder if he wanted her, or just an excuse to try to get behind the wall in her people's sacred place. If she was the treasure he proclaimed, or a consolation prize.

His repulsive friend, who looked at her as if she were a farm animal inexplicably found in a formerly respected man's bed, brought news that exposed her lover's deceit: his assurances that he had disposed of the loathesome excuse for a human who had tortured and enslaved her people had been a few days premature. The vicious swine had indeed expired, but in the days when the lie was not yet truth, she had taken her love to see the cave, she had profaned the sacred site with a kiss that now tasted like ashes. She knew now which facet of the man was dominant, whom she had truly been lying next to-and underneath, and on top of-this past fortnight and more.

Neither the ripping, stabbing, eviscerating pain of her broken heart, nor the dull ache of disappointment that he had not turned out to be the sum of his better qualities, surprised her; but she had not expected the mounting panic twisting her guts. She who had never feared bear, wolf, or Redcoat, was shaking with terror. For she had known, but not admitted to herself or him, that they no longer slept alone in the cozy pile of animal skins and discarded clothing, that she had not bled in the past week, and should have, and would not again for nearly a year. And the thought of the monster in her lover waking a monster in their child turned her stomach to water and her knees to quicksand.

So she averted her eyes from him, deafened her ears to his pleas. He wanted to talk, to explain, and she knew if he had that chance, she would listen. She would believe him, trust him, love him. He might even stay, as he always did, trying to prove himself worthy of her love. And she would let him, let his clever words allay her fears, let the sunlight of his adoration grow flowers in her soul and babies in her belly, and no matter how much she wanted that, she had to hold firm, had to push away the man she loved to keep out the beast she feared. She had to insist, to demand, that he never see her again. Because she knew she couldn't be this strong a second time, could not look into his strange gray eyes without succumbing once more to this overwhelming, heart-wrenching, terrifyingly true love.

Author's note: the title is from the song "Tombigbee" by Tori Amos. Ziio isn't quite as angry as the narrator of the song, but I couldn't get it out of my head while I was writing.